In an unprecedented move on June 14, 2017, Michigan's Attorney General, Bill Schuette, charged five state officials with involuntary manslaughter, alleging that each had failed to address the city of Flint's contaminated water issue that they knew was connected to the poisoning deaths of 12 individuals.

A Ninth Circuit panel recently issued a decision in United States v. Olson, affirming the conviction of the former Alaska executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's ("USDA") Farm Service Agency for misprision of felony under 18 U.S.C. § 4. 

On April 18, 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Kokesh v. Securities and Exchange Commission—a case which could determine whether the Securities and Exchange Commission's power to disgorge ill-gotten gains is subject to a statute of limitations.  

The U.S. Department of Justice ("DOJ")'s Criminal Fraud Section recently issued guidance for corporate compliance programs in a document titled Evaluation of Corporate Compliance Programs ("Fraud Section Guidance"), which reflects a number of notable differences from prior guidance on similar issues. 

In this two-part series, we recap the confirmation hearing highlights of President Donald Trump's nominee for chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, who testified before the Senate Banking Committee on March 23, 2017. 

President Donald Trump's nominee for chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Jay Clayton, testified before the Senate Banking Committee during his confirmation hearing on March 23, 2017.  

For those watching in the trading world, the U.S. Supreme Court has confirmed that your friends can, indeed, pass on a gift of non-public information about a company that could leave you criminally liable for insider trading, even if they gain nothing concrete in return. 

The massive Panama Papers leak has attracted attention to the use of offshore business entities and implicated 2,400 U.S.-based clients of Mossack Fonseca. 

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently announced an administrative settlement with Apex Fund Services (US) Inc., a firm providing administrative services to private funds, based on its alleged failure to heed red flags and correct faulty accounting by two private equity managers. 

Recently, John C. Cruden, DOJ's Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Environmental and Natural Resources Division (ENRD), which oversees DOJ's environmental litigation, voiced a heightened commitment to enforcing environmental laws through criminal prosecution.

Since the financial crisis, the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement activity has been the subject of much attention and debate.